Did my daughter go to private school? Yes- because private schools have endowments and she managed to get financial assistance that made my actual out of pocket the same as it would have been at UNH. UNH,like most state schools, is dead broke and you can forget about any financial aid there.

Fully half of my drug expenses were for IVs: sugar water. I asked my doctor if typical markup of the $30k of drugs I got was the same as the typical 50% margin in other retail operations, for an actual cost of $15k. He said they probably cost more like $1k; they make huge profits on the insured to make up for what they lose treating the uninsured or Medicare patients.

You don't anger me at all. But I'm surprised that you'd take the stance that you do when you admit that you can't afford a new Lexus any more than I can. My point is that being in retail I see first hand what people are buying, who's buying it, and more important who's not spending because they can't afford to. The descrepancy between the number of those who can afford to spend a lot and those who can't afford to spend at all is the widest today than I've seen in 25 years of retail management experience, and that includes during recessions.

Finally, my parent's generation typically had one person supporting the family, and managed comfortably. June and Ward Cleaver were the rule, not the exception. Our generation typically has both parents working, and not because they want to, but because they have to. That in and of itself is not a bad thing, but when both parents in the average family are working and still can barely cover expenses(and current Dept of Labor statistics as well as my personal observations bear that out) the economic forecast is not a rosy one.